[Air-L] Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

[Denise N. Rall]

Here's an "older" book that actually details what should be done to run a good online classroom -

As well as student responses (in 1999)
Palloff, R. M. and K. Pratt (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
	
There may be an update. Highly recommended.

Denise


Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science,  Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA 
Mobile +(61) (0)438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ 
Join the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Internet Research 10.0, October 7-11, Milwaukee, WI, USA


--- On Thu, 20/8/09, Radhika Gajjala <cyborgwati at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Radhika Gajjala <cyborgwati at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Air-L]  Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Received: Thursday, 20 August, 2009, 9:04 AM
> Christian I agree.
> 
> Its not online vs offline - but difference in pedagogy and
> engagement. The
> student has to be active in online discussion to be
> "present" - likewise the
> instructor has to be engaged on various levels in order to
> keep up with
> "teaching" in an online setting.
> 
> It also takes much more time and effort on the part of the
> instructor before
> - in preparing - and during class ...
> 
> r
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Christian Nelson <xianknelson at mac.com>wrote:
> 
> > Oops, forgot that pesky new policy and responded only
> to Gerry.
> > Anyway, here are my concerns about this news.
> > First, I wonder if the researchers controlled for
> student ability and
> > motivation. Online students tend to be the more bright
> and motivated ones.
> > Second, I wonder if they controlled for amount of
> student-teacher
> > interaction. I suspect that most online teachers are
> adjuncts and
> > non-tenured folks from whom much student interaction
> time can be demanded,
> > and student-instructor interaction seems unavoidable
> in online courses, much
> > as online instructors might seek to limit it. (At
> least, that was true in
> > the one I took. My professor vigorously tried to avoid
> or at least lessen
> > interaction, but had a hard time doing so.)  On
> the other hand, most
> > off-line teaching is low in student-teacher
> interaction. Research indicates
> > that even most discussion section teaching is
> lecturing--the same kind of
> > thing you'd find in a large lecture hall . . . or on a
> TV delivering
> > distance ed. courses for that matter. In light of
> that, it is little wonder
> > that students might do better online, given that
> interaction is unavoidable
> > in online courses.
> > If amount of interaction is the cause of the
> difference found here, it is
> > then misleading to pose this as a difference between
> online and
> > "face-to-face" teaching, and unfortunate that it does
> so, because I'm sure
> > that truly discussion-focused face-to-face teaching
> trumps online teaching,
> > at least as its found in the majority of places today.
> And there's no
> > guarantee that online teaching will maintain its level
> of student-instructor
> > interaction--soon we'll have teaching via
> video-conferencing and with it a
> > likely increased presence of lecturing and its
> equivalents online.
> >  --Christian Nelson
> >
> >
> >
> >
> -- 
> Radhika Gajjala
> Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies
> Interim Women's Studies Director 2009-2010
> 233 Shatzel
> Bowling Green State University
> Bowling Green, OH  43403
> http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik
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